BNH Book Review: Company of One

"Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business”
by Paul Jarvis
2019/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt     
$26/250 pages

It’s the dream of many business owners—to become the next big thing. But author Paul Jarvis in his new book Company of One says staying small might be better. While that might sound completely antibusiness, Jarvis points out that “not all growth is beneficial.” Growth, in some cases, can be detrimental, leading to a business flash-and-crash that comes, at its core, from lack of control.

Overall, says Jarvis, companies of one have four typical traits: “resilience, autonomy, speed, and simplicity.” Self-knowledge of these traits, and the dexterity to use them properly, are two of the keys to owning a company of one.

Entrepreneurs who stay solo accept reality and know how to adapt when roadblocks are hit. They build work into their lives and set their hours to best use their own productivity habits. Companies of one enjoy increased flexibility, so they’re able to take smaller or short-turnaround projects from larger companies that work more ponderously. And they tend to shy away from complexities within their operations because “simple solutions typically win.”

None of this means that you should avoid growth; instead, it means you should think about it carefully and plan to cap it.

While this book is intriguing and presents a different way of looking at generating revenue and controlling growth, the same basic idea—growth is not necessarily good, unless you do it right and never fast—is presented in many ways. Readers are given tips on “staying small” but that information floats among similar-sounding rules, and anecdotes that, while entertaining, are also the same.